


Resonance

by dracoqueen22



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M, MTMTE Season Two, Post-Empire of Stone, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 13:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6285589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Great Sword calls and Drift follows the pull of his spark, straight to Cyclonus' door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resonance

His backplate starts to itch the moment their tiny shuttle docks. Drift frowns and reshuffles his armor, but the twitch doesn't go away. In fact, it starts to turn into a dull, throbbing warmth. What the frag?  
  
“Drift?”   
  
He looks over his shoulder. The gem in the hilt of Wing's Great Sword is glowing. It, uh, usually doesn't do that. At least, not while it's not in use, and since he can't feel the tell-tale tug on his spark, the sword isn't active.   
  
Strange.   
  
“Something's up,” he says with a narrowing of his optics.   
  
Ratchet sighs. “Something mystical?”   
  
Drift tosses him a wry grin. “Thought you didn't believe in that stuff?”   
  
Ratchet's fingers fly over the console. “I don't,” he grunts. “But there's been enough weird slag going on around you and the Lost Light and everybody else that I just have to take things with a grain of stardust.”   
  
Drift chuckles. Ratchet has a point.   
  
The Great Sword gives another jolt, like a zap of electricity to his spinal strut. Seriously. What the frag?  
  
Drift reaches over his shoulder and withdraws the massive blade. He holds it out, examining it closer. The jewel glows a little brighter. It gives off a subtle, but growing EM field.   
  
It's humming, too. A soft sound. A lullaby.   
  
It's pulsing in faster increments. And it's moving. Tugging. Pulling.  
  
Yeah. The weird thing is pulling him toward the shuttle's exit.   
  
“Do I want to know?” Ratchet asks as the shuttle completes the lockdown procedures with a cheerful beep, and he's allowed to step away from the console.   
  
Drift shakes his head. “I'm not sure I want to know,” he retorts, but it is with a fond look. “Guess I should investigate.”   
  
“And by that you mean….?”  
  
“Follow it wherever it leads,” Drift replies with a crooked grin and a head tilt toward the door. “Wanna come?”   
  
“Not at all,” Ratchet replies with his version of cheerful. “I'd much rather go sit in on a command meeting with Megatron, Rodimus, and Minimus. Which, coincidentally, is what I'm about to go do.”   
  
“I'm sorry to miss that,” Drift drawls. He's only half-lying. He doesn't know if they're going to invite him back to command, but more than that, he doesn't know if he'll accept if they do.   
  
Ratchet claps him on the shoulder, offering a reassuring squeeze. “Sure you are. We'll meet up later? You can fill me in on whatever mystical miracle is going on this time.”   
  
Drift rests his hand over Ratchet's. “Will do.”   
  
After all, what in the universe could it possibly be?  
  


~

  
  
The door to his habsuite chimes, and Cyclonus turns toward it with a frown. Tailgate wouldn't bother to knock, Rung would have sent a message informing Cyclonus of his intent to visit, and there's no one else on this ship who would have swung by just to say hello.   
  
Of course, whoever it is could just be looking for Tailgate. That is the likelier explanation.   
  
Cyclonus turns away from the window and palms the door open. He stares, cycles his optics, and then stares some more.   
  
“Were you not exiled?” he asks.   
  
Drift grins back at him, happier and less uptight than Cyclonus has ever seen him. “Yes, well, when an angry medic comes out into the wilderness for the sole purpose of dragging you back… no isn't really an option. Can I come in?”   
  
“Why?”   
  
Drift taps the hilt peeking over his shoulder. “Something tells me I should…?”  
  
Drift is no longer third in command. Cyclonus is under no obligation to admit the once Decepticon. But he finds himself curious despite everything, and so long as Drift doesn't insist they engage in some kind of spiritual mumbo-jumbo, Cyclonus supposes he wouldn't mind the company.   
  
He steps aside, a silent agreement.   
  
Drift's smile widens. “Thanks.” He strolls into the room and looks around, Cyclonus getting a good view of his back and aft.   
  
While both are something to appreciate, Cyclonus is more drawn to the fact that the jewel in the hilt of Drift's Great Sword is pulsing a glow in steadily increasing intervals. How curious.   
  
“Are you here to stay?” Cyclonus asks, attempting to be polite. Tailgate tells him all the time that he comes across as rude without meaning to.   
  
“That depends on what Rodimus and Magnus say,” Drift replies as he pokes his nose into all corners of the suite, like a turbofox investigating its new domestic home. “I've yet to decide whether I want proximity to Megatron or not.”   
  
Well, he isn't alone in that respect.   
  
Drift finally comes to a halt in front of the stand that houses Cyclonus' own Great Sword. He is rarely found without it on his own back, but something had compelled him to give the ancient weapon a rest.   
  
“That's right,” Drift murmurs as he lowers his head to stare directly at it. The sword attached to his back pulses another bright flicker. “Ratchet told me you had a Great Sword, but for some reason, until now I hadn't remembered.”   
  
He lifts a hand, directs it toward the sword.   
  
Cyclonus is across the room before he can so much as decide to do so, his fingers wrapping around Drift's wrist, stopping his hand inches from brushing the hilt.   
  
“Don't,” he says as a weird zing zaps his palm where he holds Drift's wrist. “It doesn't react well to others touching it.”   
  
“Him,” Drift corrects and twitches his wrist to free it from Cyclonus' hold.   
  
He flashes Cyclonus a fanged grin, wriggles his fingers, and then presses a fingertip to the hilt of the Great Sword, above the main gem's housing.   
  
An unexpected ripple of heat jolts Cyclonus' frame, zinging straight to his spark. It feels as though Drift has stroked his spark housing, though they are no longer in physical contact, and Drift's field is politely restrained.   
  
“They have a spark,” Drift says softly as his finger drags down, circles around the gem, like one might a sensor node. “Or something like one anyway.”   
  
Cyclonus' spark throbs again. His knees wobble. “What do you mean?”   
  
“Every Great Sword keeps a piece of the wielder within it, even as it passes down from warrior to warrior.” Drift angles his frame, pointing to the one on his back. “Mine belonged to a Knight named Wing. Yours belonged to Nightfall.”   
  
His fingertrip slides inward from the housing of the gem, to the gem itself. He gives it a light stroke, and Cyclonus' spark lurches. His frame wobbles. He inhales sharply, pleasure flashdancing through his frame.   
  
“How are you doing that?” he demands, though it comes out as a breathy gasp when another light touch by Drift's finger almost brings him to his knees.   
  
Drift blinks and mercifully stops touching the sword, giving Cyclonus a confused look as he drops his hand. “Doing what?”   
  
Echoes of pleasure linger like the aftershocks of overload, except Cyclonus had not overloaded. His entire body feels suffused with warmth, and his palms tingle, as though he wants to either take his own sword in hand, or touch the gently pulsing gem in Drift's.   
  
Cyclonus' hands close in and out of fists. His ventilations increase. “When you touch the gem, my spark reacts.”   
  
Drift looks at him. “You really do have an affinity for it. I mean, Wing told me that the swords choose their bearers but...” His gaze shifts between Cyclonus and the sword twice over. “They form a bond with your spark and all the energy is focused here.” He gestures toward the gem, and just the anticipation of a touch sends desire skittering through Cyclonus' sensornet.   
  
It has been too long since he's allowed himself to be touched intimately, and that lack is suddenly and keenly apparent. Arousal simmers in his lines. He's tempted to ask Drift to touch the sword again, if only to feel that maddening pleasure once more.   
  
“I see,” Cyclonus says, pure effort keeping his composure.   
  
“Though that is weird.” Drift folds his arms and rubs at his chin with one hand. “Ratchet's touched my sword before, and it's never done anything to me.” He gives Cyclonus a sideways look, a grin with a touch of fang. “Want to do a little experiment?”   
  
The gem on Drift's Great Sword flickers as though both agreeing with Drift, and enticing Cyclonus into agreement.   
  
“There's so little I do not know or understand about that weapon,” Cyclonus admits as he finds himself moving closer and closer to Drift, or more precisely, Drift's sword. His hand rises, claws within reach of the amber-colored gem. “May I?”   
  
Drift angles himself toward Cyclonus, pushing the hilt of his sword closer. “By all means.”   
  
Invitation granted, Cyclonus follows Drift's earlier path. He traces around the gem's housing first. There is no visible difference between his sword and Drift's, but the blade gives off a small field of it's own, and that is where Cyclonus can feel the deviation. Does this draw on Drift's own field as well, or is it unique to the blade?   
  
Drift in-vents sharply. “That's… interesting,” he says.   
  
“Shall I stop?” Cyclonus asks, even as his clawtips gently trace around the gem before the pad of his finger strokes the dome of the jewel itself.   
  
A shiver visibly races over Drift's plating, his armor shifting and resettling around his protoform. His field spikes before he reels it back in, but even that brief taste tells Cyclonus all he needs to know – it is as arousing for Drift as it had been for Cyclonus.   
  
“Drift?”   
  
The former Decepticon cycles a ventilation. “I felt that in my spark. Like you'd actually touched my spark.” One hand touches his chestplate, over the scrapes where his Autobot badge had been. It is the only thing on his frame still unrepaired. “I've never heard of that before.”   
  
Cyclonus lowers his hand, noticing a faint tingle spreading through his fingers, up the length of his arm, and to his own spark. It's not quite pleasure, not like Drift touching the gem of his Great Sword had been, but there is a comforting warmth to it.   
  
He edges around Drift and grabs his own sword, attaching it to his back. The moment it clicks into place, another wave of heat swamps his frame, and Cyclonus sways unsteadily. The warmth had been welcoming, pleasurable, and he can't decide if he wants to embrace it, perhaps request more, or if that would be inadvisable.   
  
“It is a curious sensation,” Cyclonus manages to say. A tremble flits across his armor and ignites his field. It is all he can do to keep the energies from reaching out for Drift. “So curious that if you do not intend to continue, perhaps it is better if we created some distance,” he adds and takes a pointed step backward, further from the siren call of Drift's own hot and hungry field.   
  
Drift's glossa flicks across his lips, his optics glowing much brighter than when he'd first pinged Cyclonus' door. “You have a point,” he says diplomatically, and also takes a step back, the odd visceral connection between them stretching like elastic. “Though for the record, I'm not entirely opposed.”   
  
Cyclonus blinks. “You… aren't?”  
  
“Why would I be? It is a relief to meet another mech that the swords find worthy, though whether or not I am is still debatable.” Drift offers a smile that is as much self-deprecating as it is inviting. “Though you have a point. We're pretty much strangers and while some people on this ship might have no problem swapping cables with strangers, something tells me that's not how you roll. Or, err, fly. However, the phrase goes.”   
  
It takes all he has not to lean into the comfort Drift's field offers. He can feel his own Great Sword humming against his back in encouragement.   
  
“There are ways to become acquaintances,” Cyclonus says and thinks, for a moment, how proud Tailgate would be to see him making friends. “I am told that sharing engex in Swerve's is one such method.”   
  
A soft laugh escapes Drift's lips. “I've heard that, too. And if I'm not mistaken, that was an invitation. Later then? After I've got my return settled.”   
  
Cyclonus inclines his head. “Yes. I would like that.”   
  
“Me, too.” Drift stares at him for a bit longer, a hint of pink appearing on his cheeks before he shuffles his feet and sidesteps toward the door. “Um, meet you there?” The gem flickers again as though doubling the invitation.   
  
“Yes.” Cyclonus' own sword pulses in return, though Drift can't see it.   
  
He's given another smile by the once-Decepticon before Drift leaves, and Cyclonus is once again left with the silence of his quarters.   
  
He draws the Great Sword and holds it out in front of himself, eying the glowing gem and the thrum of energy running down the length of it.   
  
“You are a worse matchmaker than Tailgate,” Cyclonus says.   
  
The Great Sword does not answer, not that he expects one. But the flicker of the gem seems to indicate amusement.   
  
Shaking his head, Cyclonus returns the sword to his back. He doesn't know where this meeting with Drift will take him, but it will be interesting to find out.   
  
A date. Honestly.   
  
Who knew?  
  


****


End file.
